Linguistic and Narrative Cohesion in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridg

Linguistic and Narrative Cohesion in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridg

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Linguistic and Narrative Cohesion in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

The reader's bewilderment at the end of Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is less a result of Peyton Farquhar's death than the timely coordination of this man's violent execution with the reader's sudden realization that instead of a detached objective reading he has been cajoled into a subjective experience (Ames 53). The reader is able to cross over into the consciousness of the protagonist at the moment when experience ends because of the story's cohesion and coherence. A focused examination of specific passages and themes in each of the story's sections demonstrates how Bierce satisfies the expectations of the reader and provides a…show more content…

Because the reader's linguistic and thematic expectations are being met, the desire to make the dream a reality is strong and the reader becomes so immersed in the story that he forgets that content is a function of technique. As a consequence, the account in the third segment seems reasonable, even though it is presented by an unreliable narrator.

The reader is conditioned from the start as the narrator offers concrete, matter-of-fact details that are logically constructed yet do not record connected actions. These sentences contain known-new contracts that build the reader's perception of the setting and interest in the antecedent action:

A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees (Charters, Introduction 74).

In the first sentence the reader is made acquainted to a man standing on a bridge looking down at the water below him. This subject is related to the subject of the second sentence, The man's hands, which is in a known-new contract with the predicate were behind his back. A parallel structure within the

Ambrose Bierce was famous for his strange and mysterious stories of ghosts, monsters, aliens and the supernatural, and "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" was one of his weirdest. This story has virtually no dialogue of any kind, except the inner thoughts of Peyton Farquhar as he is about to be hanged, followed by a dream-like flashback that happened as he imagined the rope had broken. Bierce was a Union Army veteran, and made it clear that he was not particularly fond of this secessionist planter…

Brianna Toddy
Mrs. Neil
DC Language Arts 3 Period 2
18 November 2015
6. Is “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” commercial fiction whose sole purpose is to entertain, or is it a serious piece of art, yielding real insights into important aspects of life? Make a careful examination of plot as you pose your response.
An Art Piece Called Life
What would happen if you suddenly ran out of time: no longer able to tell someone you love them, unable to feel a lover’s embrace, or to feel the touch of a child’s…

he thinks and feels. Through pronouns such as “he”, “his” and “him”, the narrator is speaking in third person. Because the narrator 's knowledge is limited to one character, the story is written from a limited omniscient point of view. “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge” is split into three sections. At the beginning of the story, the narrator states, “A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama . . . a rope closely encircled his neck” (Bierce). Immediately, the reader knows the protagonist…

Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” does not follow the typical conventions of a plot-heavy story. The sequence of events initially appears minuscule: a supporter of the Confederacy named Peyton Farquhar is persuaded to attempt a sabotage of a Federal troop stronghold by a Northern scout in disguise, he is hanged, and in his final few moments of life hallucinates escaping his current situation and returning home. However, Bierce bolsters this lack of plot points with detailed descriptions…

â€œAn Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridgeâ€?
Ambrose Bierce weaves a tale of intrigue and captivation, by using shifts of voice and time in the story â€œAn Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridgeâ€?. In the first four paragraphs, Bierce begins the story using third person, and in this point of view, he creates reality. We can view the situation and all aspects while it is written in third person; we know precisely what is going on, we know it is real. Near the end of the fourth paragraph, the author shifts cleverly…

Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is a story about a man’s final moments on earth before he is hanged and how he got there. There is a struggle within the character Farquhar of who he is and who he thinks he is. This causes different views throughout the story between reality and a fantasized reality. This plays a big role in the story because in part three of the story he thinks he is far superior and had outwitted his captures and escaped without a scratch after the…

Hailey Stansbury
Professor Jodi Johnson
English 206- Section 002
October 12, 2016
Question 5: What do you think the theme of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is?
There may be a few themes of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” that come to mind for other readers, but I like to think the theme is reality and illusion. Reality and illusion tend to be closely together in this story. It wasn’t until the very end of the story when I became aware that there was division between the two. Farquhar’s…

Although the story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek,” is ironic, there are other literary elements represented in the story. Perhaps Ambrose Bierce’s most famous works, he used imagery from his own personal experiences in the Civil War, which adds to the suspense of the short story. Imagination is a difficult word to define. The ability to have a daydream, or picture with vivid details, is what imagination could be. An imagination is key for some people, who escape real life into a fantasy world. Bierce's…

For my literary analysis I chose to analyze Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” The short story was published in one of Bierce’s most famous and best works, “The Tales of Soldiers and Civilians.” It was a story based on some experiences from Bierce’s service in the Civil War. In Ambrose Bierce’s short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, Bierce uses characters, the setting, and Farquhar’s hallucination to show the inhumanities of war and why it should be ended…

Illusion versus Reality
Ambrose Bierce’s short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” illustrates a theme of illusion versus reality distorted by the human mind. In the story, a man named Peyton Farquhar is about to be hanged on a railroad bridge towards the end of the American Civil War. Farquhar, a Confederate citizen eager to help the Confederate States of America’s cause, ventures out towards Owl Creek Bridge at the advice of a Union scout in disguise. Unbeknownst to Farquhar, Union troops…